So what are the best ways to earn money from running a forum? I run a small but growing members forum and want to

I run a small but growing members forum and want to create some income from it to cover the costs of hosting and my time surrounded by administering it etc. What are the best ways of generating a average income from my forum?

Answers:
If you have a greatly active forum that attracts clued-up people surrounded by your industry, you can follow the practice of WebmasterWorld.com Forum which has a free partition as well as all right as paid Supporters Forum http://www.webmasterworld.com/subscribe. - 6 months subscription to the forum costs $89 while 1 year subscription costs $149

You can also sign on an advertising meet people. Advertising networks are organizations that aggregate Web sites that give advertising space, and supply banner ad (and other advertising options) across them. Traffic requirement is regularly a minimum of 5,000 monthly impressions, although many do not adopt sites hosted by free page services.

Burst Media http://www.burstmedia.com
Fastclick (ValueClick). http://www.fastclick.com
Advertising.com. http://www.advertising.com
Tribal Fusion http://www.tribalfusion.com

Participate surrounded by contextual advertising networks. Contextual exposure are text ad delivered base on the content of the web page using an automated system.

Google Adsense https://www.google.com/adsense/...
Yahoo! Publishing Network (currently within beta and available to US publishers only) http://publisher.yahoo.com/
Intellixt http://vibrantmedia.com/site/web_01a5.ht...
Quigo Adsonar http://www.quigo.com/adsonarexchange.htm...
IndustryBrains http://www.industrybrains.com
Commission Junction Evolution http://www.cj.com
Kanoodle Brightads http://www.kanoodle.com/about/brightads.
Clicksor http://www.clicksor.com/affiliate_progra...
Contextweb http://www.contextweb.com/
Bidclix http://www.bidclix.com/
Bidvertiser http://www.bidvertiser.com/

You can also sell exposure for your site directly. This is admittedly a more difficult route for a small business site wanting to earn advertising revenues. But hey, as they articulate: "no pain, no gain!"

Another instrument is through Affiliate Programs - you sell other people's products that your audience may be interested contained by; and you get a spot on commission after the desired action be done (whether a sale, a organize, subscription to email newsletter, or however this is defined)

Commission Junction http://www.cj.com
Linkshare http://www.linkshare.com

Approach online advertiser related to your forums topic. Exhibit the number of hits on your web site to spawn them interested and if they like what you hold they will advertise on your website and you would receive paid on number of hits on their join.